Postmodern%20Urbanism

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Postmodern Urbanism

• Toronto as an Example

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Outline

• Clarification of Terms Postmodernism,
  Postmodernity and Postmodern City
• Structure of the Article
• Toronto from Modernization to Postmodernism
• Modernization and Anti-Modernism Regent Park as
  an example
• Postmodern Urbanism
• Renovation of Historical Building and the Retro
  Chic
• Urban Social Movements
• Social Geography of Toronto the Issue of
  Gentrification

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Postmodernism, Postmodernity and Postmodern City
?
Postmodernism (cultural dominantresistant or complicit) Postmodern City Texts (representation/concept and lived experience)
Postmodernity Postmodern City
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Postmodernism, Postmodernity and Postmodern City

• postmodernity (postmodern conditions ????
  ????????????) -overall commofication
  multinational capitalism electronic/tele-communi
  cation reinforced or critiqued by
  postmodernism.
• ????? (postmodernism)-Cultural Dominant in the
  Postmodern Age ????(in music, architecture, pop
  culture, politics, critical theories, etc. )
• ?????(depthless)?????????(intertextuality,
  parody pastiche ??)???(metafictional e.g.
  Mermaid)?????(ambiguous)??????/??(de-doxification)
  ???(eclecticism)???(boundary-crossing)???(pluralis
  tic), etc.

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What is Postmodernism? (1)
Negative Positive
Flattening of subjectivity Pastiche Ambiguity Eclecticism Pluralism De-Centering Boundary-crossing
Literature Film Surfiction, metafiction pastiche Parody Ensemble film Sci-fi . . .,etc Historiographical metafiction metafilm
Urban space Society as spectacle Plural space Multiple historical signs De-zoning or democratization of urban space re-creation of historical spaces

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Postmodern Urbanism and the Canadian Corporate
City Structure

• Postmodern Urbanism(defined p. 100)
• Anti-Modernist according to social/urban critics
  machine-modeled, not practical
• Modernism pro and conrationalization and
  enlightenment as passé or an unfinished project
• A New Paradigmpolyphony
• Social Movements
• Metropolitan restructuring (service-centred) 1)
  gentrification or deindustrialization, 2)
  harborfront development, 3) functional diversity
  of the suburbs 4) de-agriculturalization
• Corporate City (four periods 116-119) Canadian
  city vs. American city
• Features of Postmodern urbanism in Toronto ball
  park, Yonge Street, China town.

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Main Issues for us

• Gentrification, de-gentrification
  re-gentrification (116) In Taiwan?
• Gentrification to change a place from being a
  poor area to a richer one, by people of a higher
  social class moving to live there.-??, areas
  which are nodes of the main transportation lines
  (e.g. the bullet train line).
• Urban Social Movements, the correct targets?
  Local or structural (113), Reactive or radical
  changes?
• Urban spatial re-structuring in Taipei e.g.
  ??(Miramax) ???? ?? and ??? the impact of MRT?
  mega city

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Modernization and Anti-Modernism

• Modernization
• architecture geometric design universal
  structure committed to a unified organization of
  life. (Less is Beautiful More is Bore.)
• Urban design rationalized division of functions
  in life// zoning of a city or compartmentalization
  , dissociation of internal elements (ref. A City
  is not a Tree p. 130)
• Utopian in spirit. E.g. Corbusiers ???? (ref)

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Anti-Modernism

• e.g. Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Venturi (p. 102)
• destroy the historic fabric and organic
  structure of traditional cities
• De-humanizing mechanical
• Ignore the practical functions of life (e.g.
  pedestrian walkway ? The City is not a Tree.)
• An elitist architectural language that failed to
  speak to most city dwellers? their hostility to
  the modern forms (? Regent Park)

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Modernist Housing Project An Example Regent
Park in Toronto

• Canada's oldest social housing project, having
  been built in the late 1940s.
• Location bounded by Gerrard Street to the north,
  River Street to the east, Shuter Street to the
  south, and Parliament Street to the west.
• A majority of families in Regent Park are
  classified as low-income, with 68 of the
  population living below the LICO (Canada's
  Low-Income Cut-Off Rate) in one of its census
  tracts and 76 in the other (compared to a
  Toronto-wide average of just over 20).
• Now being revitalized Regent Park A Place to
  Call Home (source )

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Regent Park Location
East
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Regent Park Location
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Regent Park Image
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Postmodern Urban Design

• A mixture of styles consistent with nearby
  traditional forms. (p. 101 105 )
• a difference practice of Modernisms egalitarian
  objectives
• Dialogic (or polyphonic), rather than monologic
  (107)
• Turns the utopian vision into something
  communicativecreated by the people, but not the
  designers alone.
• Examples
• Yonge Street
• BCE Place
• some malls in the suburban areas

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Renovation and Preservation of Historical
Preservation

• Yonge Street, north from Adelaide, Toronto,
  Ontario, c. 1885.

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Renovation and Preservation of Historical
Preservation

• Yonge Street, present

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Historical Preservation Retro Chic
Canada Trust
BCE Place several buildings connected by a
shopping mall. Forming Ts skyline are the
Canada Trust Tower and its sibling the Bay
Wellington tower.
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Historical Preservation Retro Chic
Façade of an old building
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Mall Disney Like

• Erin Mills Town CentreMississauga, ON

Woodbine CentreEtobicoke, ON More . . .
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Woodbine Centre Fantasy Land
Déju vu? 101?
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Urban Social Movements

• Local Social Movementsnot necessarily organized
  by class.
• Three different views
• (Harvey) Community-building In resistance to
  the global flows and flexible accumulation, urban
  social movements cannot avoid sliding into
  parochialism(????), myopia and
  self-referentiality.
• (Castells) directed at specific circumstances,
  but not the general, more strategic objectives.
  ? failure to attack the real targets.
• Struggles of specificity ? movements of a broader
  scale.
• e.g. Middle-class resettlement in Toronto (p.
  109-110) ????vs. ???????. ???

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Social Geography of Toronto General
Characteristics

1. Gentrification
2. Waterfront development
3. Increasing demographic and functional diversity
   of suburbs. GTA polynucleated urban region.
4. Deindustrialization of inner city
   deagriculturalization of some rural villages.

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Social Geography of Toronto General
Characteristics (2)

• Development
• Mercantile (??) ? Commercial ? Industrial ?
  Corporate (service and entertainment)
• ? Differences from the American cities no utter
  abandonment of inner residential districts
  similarities Anglophone suburb
• ? How about Taipei?

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References

• Virtual Tours Toronto http//www.toronto.com/feat
  ure/244/index.html
• Greater Toronto Area Places Streets
  http//www.dplib.com/epc_tor.htm
• Examples Regent Park http//encyclopedia.thefreed
  ictionary.com/Regent20Park
• ??????,????????? http//www.ncu.edu.tw/eng/csa/jo
  urnal/journal_park135.htm